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Dispatch improves in spite of glitches

Sean Rossman, Tallahassee Democrat
11:12 p.m. EDT August 20, 2014

The Consolidated Dispatch Agency has seen its share of problems, but its executive director says the agency is improving emergency response times and improving all the time.(Photo: Sean Rossman/Democrat)

In an open space on the second floor of Tallahassee’s state-of-the-art Public Safety Complex sit the ready and alert call takers and dispatchers of the Leon County Consolidated Dispatch Agency, entrusted to answer every one of the hundreds of thousands of 911 calls made each year in Leon County.

The dispatch agency is the shared baby of the governments of Leon County and the city of Tallahassee and the key piece of the $47.5 million, 100,000-square-foot Public Safety Complex at 911 Easterwood Drive. It opened to much fanfare Sept. 17 and has been lauded as a model for the consolidation of city and county resources for reducing emergency response times, despite being plagued with problems.

Even though the new center and its streamlined procedures have improved response times, it has been beset with problems. City administrators have threatened Motorola, the computer-aided dispatch supplier, with dropping their contract completely.

In the first nine months of its operation, there have been 83 issues with the technical brains of the operation ranging from mis-categorized calls, botched upgrades and even full system failures. On one occasion, the agency was utterly unable to answer emergency calls. Once the system was back up, dispatchers were reduced to returning calls long afterward to people who’d tried to report an emergency.

In a June email, Sabrina Holloman, chief information systems officer with the city of Tallahassee, told Motorola the system was still not stable nine months in and had experienced approximately 83 issues since its implementation. In a June 26 email from city management and administration director Raoul Lavin to Holloman and City Manager Anita Favors Thompson, Lavin said the city requested $422,694 returned from Motorola as a result of delays and problems. He added the city gave the company an ultimatum to fix the system within 30 days and then have it run for 90 days with no system failures, issues or outages.

“We were very clear with Motorola that although we wanted to seek resolution to all the issues, we would not hesitate pursuing contract termination if we did not see progress on fixing all system issues as discussed,” Lavin wrote.

City and county officials say Motorola representatives are cooperating with fixing the issues

But on Aug. 14, shortly after a Consolidated Dispatch Agency board meeting, a Motorola engineer unsuccessfully attempted an unauthorized update to the system. In that case, and in another earlier this year, dispatchers had to revert to the old, manual communication of physically passing call notes to dispatchers.

The whole operation is governed by a board made up of the city manager, Sheriff Larry Campbell and Leon County Administrator Vince Long. Tim Lee, the executive director with 20 years of public safety experience, was brought in to run it on a $7.6 million budget. He oversees a staff of 85.

Lee, who was formerly the executive director for the Fort Wayne and Allen County Consolidated Communication Partnership in Indiana, says the system has experienced some problems but that in under one year it’s already shortened response times and continues to improve.

“Month by month we’re getting better with our times out the door,” Lee said

In the first nine months, Lee said, dispatch times for the Tallahassee Police Department improved by 22 percent, while Tallahassee Fire Department times were better by 35 percent, the Leon County Sheriff’s Office by 34 percent and Leon County Emergency Medical Services by 8 percent.

One system

The agency’s key feature is that it puts all of the county’s call takers and dispatchers in one room with one computer-aided dispatch system to share information.

Before, there were two 911 call-taking centers in Leon County using two different computer-aided dispatch systems. The city handled calls for police and fire and the county dispatched deputies and Leon County EMS ambulances. Previously, a call made in the city would go to a city dispatcher, who would need to alert the county to get EMS on scene.

“Now you’re in the same room, the same (computer-aided dispatch) system,” Lee said. “For the most part they’re being dispatched simultaneously and the communication is fluid between the same entities.”

The consolidated dispatch floor is large and open with a space for supervisors in the middle, splitting the room between dispatchers and call takers. Its design leaves room for future expansion as needed. Each desk is staffed by a headset-crowned dispatcher or call taker sitting in an ergonomically correct chair behind five computer monitors. The desks are advanced enough so that a push of the button raises and lowers the desktop to make it a standing work space. A push on a hand lever tilts the monitors forward and backward in unison.

In the first nine months of the new system’s operation, the dispatch center received more than 125,000 emergency calls, more than 300,000 calls for service, and around 212,000 administrative calls, according to Lee.

Each call taker and dispatcher keeps a running display of all emergency units’ locations. Call takers answer administrative calls and 911 calls, which have a much louder ring. When a call comes in, the location of the call pops up and a dialogue immediately begins.

“Nine-one-one, what is the address of your emergency?” they calmly ask.

There’s normally nine or 10 call takers working at one time, but there’s enough work space for 12. Each has undergone nearly a year of training before getting a chance to take a live call. They pass information to dispatchers who connect directly with sheriff’s deputies, police officers, fire trucks and ambulances out in the field through a digital radio system.

Initial contact begins with a few basic questions: The nature of the emergency, the address, the phone number and re-validating the address or location of the emergency.

From there, the call taker enters a chief complaint, such as a missing-persons report, and a time element is chosen, such as “in progress” or “just occurred,” which influences the priority level the call taker issues. The priority level is based on a numbering system with priority one being the most urgent and six representing the least time-sensitive.

A priority one includes robberies and sexual batteries in progress, which means the nearest available emergency unit, no matter the jurisdiction, is sent out. Priority levels 2 through 6 all go to the applicable agency with jurisdiction, meaning TPD is called to city calls and LCSO is called to those coming from the county.

Priority level 2s include traffic stops, priority 3s can be calls related to animals, and priority 4s are miscellaneous calls. A priority 5 is used for training and a priority 6 is for criminal mischief; perhaps a stolen newspaper.

Based on the priority and nature of the call, one or multiple agencies may be called to the scene. If two are called, the system suggests that one of the responding agencies take priority over the event and any other agency with secondary priority. A medical call, for example, would give Leon County EMS priority.

Usually within seconds, the call has been sent over to dispatchers and wheels are on the ground responding to an emergency. Leon County averages an 8.7-minute response time. The national average ranges from 7 to 12 minutes, Lee said.

The call taker remains on the phone with the caller even after the call has been prioritized and sent to dispatchers. The system automatically gives a list of questions for a call taker to ask, based on the event. The dispatchers, on the other end of the room, receive the typed-in notes from the call taker and direct units in the field based on priority. Dispatchers see available units and call in over the radio to specific units or areas to respond. If it’s a particularly urgent call, the dispatcher can take over the entire push-to-talk system.

Typically, there are four law enforcement dispatchers for police and sheriff’s deputies, two others are designated fire department dispatchers and two trained paramedics are working the EMS dispatch stations.

During peak hours from noon to 5 p.m., there are 14 ambulances on call in Leon County. Based on historical data, the ambulances are moved throughout the day to high-call areas.

Spotlight

At any time during a call, based on the flow of information, priority levels can change, which occurred in the high-profile shooting of Dan Markel, a prominent Florida State University College of Law professor who in July was shot in his Betton Hills home.

The high-profile call shed light on the agency and potential problems with the system.

The Markel call was originally designated as a priority 3, instead of the more-urgent priority 1, after the call taker missed a reference to Markel possibly having a gunshot wound. As a result, officers arrived at his home 15 minutes after the call was placed, and an ambulance showed up after 19 minutes. Now, Lee has launched an investigation into the call to see if a glitch in the system may have contributed to the delay as well. Lee said as the caller revealed more about the incident, the call taker continued typing notes into the system that should have been sent to all first responders, but that didn’t happen as intended.

Lee is expected to produce a report on the Markel call within a month. Still, the dispatch center is fulfilling its intent.

“We’ve been making huge strides as it relates to what this was established to do and the ability to communicate in the same room when the situation changes has been huge.”